Venice welcomes CicLAvia—warily

A lone bike along the Venice boardwalk is certain to have plenty of company come Sunday's CicLAvia to the sea.

Danny Farahirad predicts Sunday’s CicLAvia will be “awesome.” The last time the cycling extravaganza took to the streets of Los Angeles, his family-owned Downtown L.A. Bicycles fixed more than 150 flat tires and rented about 40 bikes in a single day.

But Farahirad is in the central city, where the car-free event has been a rousing success for three years now. Less optimistic is Hyun Dong, who manages a t-shirt stand at the end of this weekend’s new route, on the Venice Boardwalk.

“Bicycles? Bad for business,” Dong sighs, mulling his customer-less shop from behind the cash register on a recent weekday. “Just like the events with the joggers. No one buys anything.”

As L.A.’s favorite car-free movable party ventures out of the city core on its first-ever push to the ocean from Downtown Los Angeles, a mixture of excitement and apprehension awaits on the city’s populous Westside. (Click here for a map.)

As many as 200,000 people are expected to participate in the event, which promises to be the biggest, longest CicLAvia so far; more than 15 miles of asphalt will close to motor vehicles from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to make way for a free-flowing crowd of cyclists, walkers, skaters, wheelchair riders, skateboarders and others.

Advance word of the event has been accompanied by high hopes that its street-fair atmosphere will continue to travel with it, but there also have been scattered concerns that it could deter sales and jam traffic in one of the densest areas of the city. Complicating the picture are lingering jitters from this week’s Boston Marathon bombing.

“There are nuts out there who are intent on hurting people,” worries Venice resident Linda Kadi, “and after what just happened, it’s scary to think about having a huge bunch of people here in one place.”

CicLAvia organizers say they expected Westside merchants and residents to need some reassurance, and that they have been doing outreach in the community for several months.

Be warned: closure signs on Venice Boulevard

“It’s a new route,” says volunteer coordinator Martin Lopez-Iu of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition. “We’ve never done this before, so some of the reactions have been kind of confused. When people in L.A. hear that you’re closing streets and taking away parking, it’s easy for them to think, ‘Oh, my God, you’re taking away business.’ But when people slow down, they’re actually more inclined to stop into their local coffee shop or restaurant.”

He notes that most communities are welcoming the excitement. For example, in Culver City, where the first phase of the new Expo Line ends, the Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Business Association have co-sponsored one of several “hubs” where participants can gather.

But at the end of Venice Boulevard, where the route empties into a parking lot abutting the Venice Boardwalk, shopkeepers predict that CicLAvia will draw foot traffic away from their wares on the weekend, when they make most of their sales. 

“That’s gonna be a loss of fund-age, absolutely,” predicted a clerk selling glass pipes next to a marijuana dispensary who would identify himself only by his first name, Gary.

“And business has been slow already,” chimed in a neighboring jewelry merchant. “Even spring break came and went and I didn’t even notice. It was our worst spring break in 25 years.”

Lopez-Iu notes that Venice Boulevard is a popular attraction in its own right, and says CicLAvia organizers have worked with businesses before to overcome such worries. In 2011, for instance, merchants in the downtown garment and piñata districts complained that CicLAvia street closures would disrupt business on their busiest weekend day.

“Those guys do a lot of business on Sunday, and it requires people to come in in cars, and the first time we did the event there, they had a lot to say about it,” says Lopez-Iu. “So the next time, we worked with them. Some of them built bike-shaped piñatas that we promoted on our website. And we listed all the businesses there, and the fun things to do there. And they got a ton of business, because 100,000 new people had just found out where they could get piñatas and wholesale fabric in L.A.”

Organizers say that street closures will be less onerous than they might seem. For example, although much of Venice Boulevard will be taken over by CicLAvia, it will only be closed to motor vehicles on one side of the divider, and cars and trucks will be able to cut across the route in more than 30 places. 

“The south side of Venice, from Crenshaw Boulevard west, will still be open to eastbound traffic,” says Lopez-Iu. “This isn’t going to bisect the city like with the marathon.”

He also notes that security will be ramped up in the wake of Monday’s bombing, not only for CicLAvia, but also for the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books and other events that are expected to draw crowds over the weekend. In fact, he says, so many deputies and police officers are being deployed that he’s had to muster extra yellow-shirted CicLAvia volunteers to prevent crowds from feeling intimidated.

“I try to balance the police presence with volunteer presence, to put out a friendlier face,” he says.

Meanwhile, CicLAvia fans are eagerly anticipating Sunday’s big ride—even if the event hits close to home. (For FAQs, click here.)

“I will be riding the entire length of it and getting all my friends to come,” vows John Kurtz, walking his dog, Delilah, outside their Venice Beach apartment. “I wish they would do it every weekend. It lessens the impact of the car culture and opens the streets up to people, and lets people know that they don’t have to drive everywhere, that the things they need are right in their neighborhood, a short bike ride away.” 

Posted 4/18/13